Invader: Through Metal Eyes
by Synthesis
Summary: Everyone hates the monochromes, the reappearing villians who are all exactly the same. How else should we react? Rated PG-13 for some mild language earlier on.


**Invader: Through Metal Eyes**

** __**

**_DISCLAIMER: _**_I don't own Gate Keepers, which is property of Gonzo Entertainment._

The phone began to ring. 

Ichiro looked up from his futon, then pulled the sheets over his head. He had a searing headache. 

The phone kept on ringing.

The two-room apartment in which Ichiro resided didn't leave much room for sound-absorption, with its paper-thin walls, and as Ichiro finally stood up, he had half the mine to pull the phone-cord out of the jack and let it be.

And the phone kept ringing.

Finally, he grabbed the plastic receiver and held it up to his ears. "Mooshi mooshi?"

"Ichirosama! Do you have _any _idea what time it is?"

Standing in his underwear, Ichiro glanced at his watch. Under normal circumstances, he was supposed to leave for his job at the Daikoto Insurance Company at seven every morning. He had been working there for the past three years, and was a through-and-through unremarkable employee, though there were occasional complaints about his stark attitude. It had never gotten out of hand, until now.

The voice on the other end continued, screaming irritably. "What the hell is the matter with you, man? You're late! You realize that, don't you! A man with expertise as limited as your own can't afford to be late, understand that! I'm sick and tired of covering for you every single god damn time, understand? Listen to me when I'm talking to you, Ichiro! All this time, I've…"

The voice came to an abrupt end as Ichiro jerked the receiver so hard the cord snapped away from the rest of the phone. He dropped the plastic receiver and walked through his apartment, a complete mess. He wasn't usually messy, but he had been having a severe migraine for almost a week now. 

 He walked back to his bedroom, which doubled as a closet, and sat down, his legs irregular. 

_My attitude isn't _that _bad. I just have a bad headache. It's not like it's my fault._

He was about to crawl back into the bed when he could hear a high-pitched whining noise. He frowned, tapped the side of his head, and looked around. It was definitely coming from inside the room. Ichiro pushed over his piles of garbage and books that lay around, and even rolled up his futon. He could not find out what that infernal whining noise was. 

_It is time…_

He blinked. How had that gotten in there? He was still looking for the source of that noise, and then it had just popped in there like…

Ichiro jolted still. The whining noise grew louder. He grabbed the sides of his head and clasped his hands over his ears, closing his eyes.

_It is time…_

_Time for what?_

The migraine grew worse, along with the whining noise. In front of him there was a mirror. One of his eyes opened slightly, and he saw himself. There was something different, something he couldn't exactly name. 

Ichiro's body, and the underclothes he was wearing, began to flicker. The whining noise reached fever pitch. He let go of his ears, and reached into the pocket of his shorts. 

He pulled out a pair of impermeable metal glasses, and, standing up, put them over his face. The migraine ceased, as though he had never been there to start with.

In the mirror, he saw his image change. It flickered, like a bad motion picture, and he was wearing a red suit, with a green shirt underneath it and a black tie to complement it. On the suit's blazer were six charcoal gray pods, left and right of the middle of his suit, as well as two more on his shoulders. He could also see the large, irregular looking red hat on his mannequin-like head. 

His vision was also different. He was still seeing from his head, but now from the metallic glasses he wore. Two thin red circles, rangefinders and sensory, with arrows that shifted along them, identifying his surroundings. 

_Core Invader, Type One. Begin Operation. _

The red-clad Mannequin turned around, and floated towards the apartment's window, his feet only centimeters above the ground. The window opened on its own, and with his gloved hands, he took off his red hat, and it darted off, like a flying saucer. 

_Core Invader, radio frequency detected. Rendezvous with other Standard Invaders. _

He slowly slid into his floor, passing through the futon, and disappeared. 

***

Several dozen Japanese city dwellers had marched through the streets a few moments ago, without displaying any sort of human emotion. Besides where they lived, none of them shared anything in common. Some were businessmen, others housewives, some teachers, others engineers. They kept marching through the street, ignoring the glances of onlookers.

Then, at the same time, each produced a pair of metal glasses in their right hands and put them over their eyes. And at the same time, all of them seemed to flicker, as they transformed in the visual spectrum. Each was then wearing a dark gray suit with four lighter-gray pods on it, one on each shoulder, ties, and hats, like gloomy mannequins.

_Standard Invader. Begin Operation. _

An armored vehicle drove up to them, massive and futuristic. He stopped a few meters away.

Between them, a fast-food deliveryman on a bicycle stopped, looked at both the armored bus and the Mannequins, than panicked and rode off. 

Seven rows of a dozen each stood tightly together in the road, from wall to wall, like a Roman Legionary, each holding a rectangular black briefcase with their right hands.. Together they all thought, and produced an audible sound.

_"Commence attack."_

The front two rows of the Mannequins shifted slightly, and their briefcases unlocked and opened, quickly and mechanically. The bottoms slid downwards, metal barrels unfolded and extended, and the bottoms slid closed. _Shockwave projectors, ready. _

The two front rows began to fire, with a thumping sound from the air, and the shockwave blasts struck against the armored vehicle. None made any real attempt to aim, but the Shockwave Projectors automatically corrected their line of fire to hit the bus. 

They continued firing in alternations, with a half-second pause for the Projectors to recharge. The armored bus began to lift into the air, until four uniformed men, armed with submachine guns flanking a young girl appeared. The girl produced a glowing white arrow and bow, fired it, vaporizing a line of the Mannequins. None of them paused, however, and instead they turned their projectors towards the uniformed men. 

She did it over and over, entire lines of Invaders vanishing, replaced by small green crystals, which similarly broke and vanished. Each time a shockwave hit a uniformed man, he toppled down into the bus, but the girl remained unscathed. Finally, when the Invaders had been reduced to two thirds of their original number, the girl climbed back into the bus and escaped. 

_Halt Operation_, they through quietly as one. From the sky, a red hat fell to the ground. 

The hat than rose up, on the head of the Mannequin dressed in red. 

_"Commence Fusion,"_ he announced promptly. 

The rows in Invaders began glowing, there shapes shimmering, changing.

_Core Invader, proceed with plan of attack. _

A gray sphere rose from the rows, as the Mannequins began to cling together. 

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**Author's Note: **Sorry about this, as you can see, it's kind of hard to explain the story from the point of view of an Invader, given the circumstances. I'll conclude this next chapter. 


End file.
